[tcolvin]

Two biographies (by AJP Taylor and Anne Chisholm/Michael Davie) describe Beaverbrook's [b] achievements as Minister of Aircraft Production [MAP].

1. B was an appeaser and wanted a peace negotiated with Hitler - a fact excluded from the influential book 'Guilty Men' written by B's employees Michael Foot, Peter Howard and Frank Owen.
2. Churchill [C] ignored the king's advice not to employ B because it would upset influential Canadians.
3. Churchill's friendship with B was personal, and ignored B's politics. “I needed his vital and vibrant energy”, C wrote.
4. B said the RAF reacted negatively to his appointment; “They saw the power and the authority passing elsewhere....[They were] utterly distressed and completely hostile”.
5. B took no salary, used his own cars, paid for his own petrol, bought his own armoured car (£695) and then presented it to the Army to be used by Dempsey in France. B provided and paid for most of his staff.
6. B worked at first from his home at Stornoway House until it was bombed, and then in an ICI building on the Thames near Lambeth Bridge.
7. B employed; civil servants - Eaton Griffiths, Edmund Compton and Sir Archibald Rowlands; Air Ministry staff - Sir Charles Craven and ACM Sir Wilfred Freeman; personal secretaries from his newspapers – George Thomson, David Farrer and JB Wilson; Parliamentary private secretary – Lord Brownlow; industrialists – Patrick Hennessy (Ford), Trevor Westbrook (ex Vickers Armstrong and given control over both the Civilian and RAF's Repair Organisations; and others – Gp Capt Grahame Dawson, RB Bennett, Jennie Lee, who visited factories to tell people to carry on when the sirens sounded, and who acted as a messenger for discovering whether the reason for delay was men, management or lack of material, and Stephen King-Hall MP.
8. The Minister's Council comprised Craven, Freeman, Rowlands and Hennessy. “There was no discussion. Each member reported the most urgent problems, and B snapped out orders that the difficulties must be overcome” (Taylor).
9. B imitated Lloyd George's precedent as Minister of Munitions in WW1. Lloyd George had removed production from the War Office and continued to fight with them afterwards.
10. B followed no routine, treating his senior staff as he had treated his editors, calling them at all hours. He used bullying and flattery, and when these didn't work he had rows with; Bevin over manpower; Nuffield over Castle Bromwich since Nuffield thought he could build Spitfires like cars. For 9 months Castle Bromwich produced nothing so B took it over and employed thousands of women as suggested by Westbrook, and started production. Nuffield stormed into B's office and threatened to have B sacked, who replied there was nothing he would like better. Churchill told Nuffield, “I cannot interfere with the manufacture of aircraft”.
11. B disregarded protocol, left few records, and ran his Ministry over the telephone. His people then did the same.
12. B was nervous about the bombing, and falsified his attendance record, being at Cherkley on September 15 but recorded as being in London.
13. B's method was to run the production line at full speed and deal only with the problems or bottlenecks as they arose. He then with drama and swift action focussed the entire energies of the MAP on finding a solution. “In B's time the production line never worked smoothly”. (Taylor)
14. T Usher described B's working method to Taylor; “B was, during the interview I had with him, talking to the Hamilton Air Screw Co of Hamilton, Ohio, proposing payment for propellers at a time when gold resources were totally exhausted. At the same time he was carrying on another conversation, on another telephone, with the secretary to Sir Geoffrey De Havilland in Hatfield and raising hell because Sir Geoffrey was out to lunch for two hours....There were at least six other people lined up with memoranda to discuss with him whilst my father and I sat in front of his desk”.
15. B boasted of successes no one else could have achieved, such as; releasing from internment a German Jewish expert (the only one in Britain) in the design of aluminium extrusion presses, called Loewy, who had brought his staff to refuge in Britain. Military Police and security experts appealed to Churchill that Loewy be kept interned but C never replied; taking over the Ferry Pools and manning them with civilians to release RAF pilots in spite of Air Ministry refusal; placing orders with Packard for Merlin engines without approval; instituting the trans-Atlantic ferry service (Atfero) in opposition to the Air Ministry who stopped it as soon as B left the MAP; telling the factories to 'work seven days a week and disregard all labour regulations”, which brought him into conflict with Bevin, who was right since tired men are less productive.
16. But B did not always have his way; C did not establish the Army Air Force which B recommended, nor transfer Coastal Command to the RN. B wanted his workers to disregard air raid sirens and be protected by barrage balloons, AA guns and fighters “If B had had his way, Fighter Command, AA Command and most of the British Army would have been solely occupied during the autumn of 1940 in protecting aircraft factories”. (Taylor)
17. B supported Dowding's refusal to make useless gestures such as sending fighters to France, making offensive sweeps across the Channel, or forming 'the big wing'. B was coached by Max Aitken, his son and CO of 601 Sqn from June 1940, to become involved in strategic disputes, because the MAP was as much involved with development as production. There were arguments about training aircraft for the BCATP, dive bombers for the Army, and the FAA's needs. The Air Ministry argued that B should produce what they decided, but he claimed only he knew what types and numbers could be produced. B, supported by Dowding, wanted to replace the fighters' 8 machine guns with cannon, and the manufacturers said it could be done, but he Air Ministry opposed the move.
18. B decided where the fighters should be sent, and dealt directly with Park.
19. Westbrook took the spares from RAF stores and used them in production. He cannibalised aircraft to keep others flying. The Air Ministry resisted, but were overruled.
20. On July 13, Freeman wanted to resign, but changed his mind and in November did not want to return to the Air Ministry when recalled. Freeman wrote; “Your kindness to someone who must have appeared slow to understand and appreciate your methods I shall ever remember with gratitude”.
21. The RAF put it about that B's success was due to Freeman, although B himself had already made that point to Freeman himself.
22. The main complaint was B's piracy in raiding other departments' supplies. But B argued to Lt-Gen Sir Ian Jacob (not an admirer of B), who accepted its truth, that this piracy resulted in an increase in total availability because those who had been robbed took measures to find alternatives which they would not otherwise have done.
23. B resigned four times between May and December 1940, and later told C that the resignations were a deliberate act of promotion. There were other such acts that were pointless; the appeal for aluminium pots and pans produced less than one day's consumption and aluminium was never in shortage with plenty of new aluminium pots in the shops; the Spitfire Fund yielded £1 million/month when availability of sterling was not the factor limiting Spitfire availability. But these campaigns generated a feeling of urgency.
24. Dowding told Templewood/Hoare; “The country owes as much to B for the BofB as it does to me. Without his drive behind me I could not have carried on during the battle”. Strong bonds of sympathy and outlook developed between B and Dowding who were opposites in character. Farrer wrote, “When their talks were finished, B would get up from his chair, accompany Dowding to the front entrance of the Ministry two floors below, and show him to his car. To no one else except Churchill did he pay a similar attention”. Dowding and B both believed the bomber could be beaten off by sufficient fighters, while the Air Ministry believed there was no defence except retaliation by bombers which took priority over fighters. (Taylor)
25. Fighter production had leapt in April 1940 (March 177, April 256, May 325) before B took over, and the improvement continued in May before B could have had an impact. The improvement in fighter production was due to their taking an increasing percentage of rising total production (Feb 19.6%, Mar 20.6%, Apr 23.7%, May 25.4%, June 28.0%, July 29.8%, Aug 29.7%).
26. The Air Ministry claimed B's 'success' was due to the plans and preparations made before B took over. If B had not taken over, then two things would have resulted; fewer fighters and more bombers, and a reduced sense of urgency. Taylor concludes that these two results could have cost Britain the BofB. The champions of the Air Ministry do not disagree. Their objection was the excessive cost of B's achievement. Joubert wrote; “In fact B.... played hell with the war policy of the RAF. But he most certainly produced the aircraft that won the BofB. What he did in the summer of 1940 set back the winning of the air war over Germany by many months. The bomber production programme was disrupted to allow of high-speed production of fighters. And who can say that he was very wrong?” B always admitted a willingness to sacrifice the future for the present. The heavy bomber development was stopped for only two months, and its biggest cause of delay was the need to resolve teething problems of new technology, American industry was more successful here than British industry. The Air Ministry complaint was a red herring. B did not believe in victory through bombing, and he was right.
27. B wanted to meet the needs of the Army, and in July 1940 placed a large order for dive bombers in the USA. The Air Ministry protested and refused to supply or train pilots. Sinclair persuaded Margesson to cancel further orders. Complaints about lack of dive bombers became acute in 1941 in North Africa, and B was blamed for the deficiency. B wanted to reply, but C stopped him.
28. B pushed the Whittle jet, but the Air Ministry neglected it when B left the MAP. Barnes Wallis always said the development of his large bombs happened despite the Air Ministry and due to B's support.

Tony